Memory is Physical

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This is the Yizkor sermon I delivered at Congregation Neveh Shalom on April 9, 2026.

There is a moment, perhaps you know it well: a memory jolt. Memories don’t always arrive gently; sometimes they interrupt when you least expect them.  

You’re standing in line at Fred Meyer, you’re driving downtown, you’re setting the table, and suddenly something breaks through. A smell. A phrase. A familiar cadence of music. And in an instant, time collapses. You’re no longer here, you’re somewhere else. With them. In a moment that feels as vivid as if it’s happening now. 

What catches us off guard is not only the memory itself, but its force, its insistence, or its refusal to stay in the past. 

On this eighth day of Passover, as we gather for Yizkor, we stand in a sacred tension between past and present. For seven days, we have told the story of our people, of יציאת מצרים, of leaving the narrow place, of moving from constriction toward possibility. We have fulfilled the mitzvah of “והגדת לבנך” telling the story, shaping memory through words. 

And now, we turn inward. 

Yizkor asks something quieter, and in many ways, something more demanding. Not the retelling of a national narrative, but the encounter with our own. 

Jewish tradition is deeply attuned to the complexity of memory. We are commanded again and again to remember, זכור. But our tradition never assumes that memory is straightforward. 

There is the memory of narrative, the facts we can recount. Who they were. What they did. The stories we tell at tables and anniversaries. This kind of memory is structured. It gives us coherence. 

But there is another kind of memory, less orderly and far more powerful: the memory that lives in the body. The memory of relationship. Of how it felt to be known by this person. The tone of their voice. The safety, or the challenge, they brought into our lives. The ways they shaped us, often without words. 

This is the memory that finds us unexpectedly. The one that can bring both comfort and ache in the same breath. 

And on a day like today, we are invited to hold both. 

The Israelites, too, carried layered memory as they left Egypt. They didn’t leave with a single, unified story. They left with fragments: the bitterness of slavery, the urgency of departure, the fear of the unknown, the fragile hope of freedom. Their memory was not resolved, it was alive, evolving as they moved through the wilderness. 

So too for us. The memories we carry of those we love aren’t fixed. They aren’t static. They shift as we shift. As we grow older, as we encounter new challenges, as we stand in places they never stood, we come to understand them differently. Isn’t it fascinating how your relationship with a parent who died years ago can continue to evolve? As we get older, the experiences we had with them take on new meaning, they become more complex. Maybe a relationship you thought you understood deepens or raises questions. 

Even grief itself changes shape over time, and this can feel unsettling. We might wonder: if the memory changes, is it still true? Our tradition answers: yes. 

Because to remember is not to preserve something untouched. It is to remain in relationship. It is to allow what was to continue to shape what is. 

The word זיכרון in Judaism is not static recall; it is active presence. It is why we say, “זכר יציאת מצרים” we don’t just remember the Exodus, we bring it into this moment. And at Yizkor, we do the same. We don’t simply look back; we allow those we have lost to stand with us, to accompany us in who we are becoming. 

This means that memory carries a responsibility, not only to remember people as they were, but to ask what part of them lives on through us. What values did they embody that now yearn to be part of our lives? What unfinished goodness calls out through their absence? What would it mean for their love, their courage, their humor, their particular way of being in the world, to find expression in our lives? 

Just to reassure you, this is in no way replacing them. It’s how they live on. In Judaism, the truest measure of memory is not how vividly we recall, but how faithfully we carry forward. 

So on this day of Yizkor, I invite you to do more than remember. Let the memories come, the easy ones and the painful ones, the clear ones and the complicated ones. Let them be as they are, without forcing them into something simpler than they feel. 

And then, gently but honestly, ask: What am I carrying forward? 

Choose one thing. One איכות, one quality. A patience you learned. A generosity you witnessed. A stubborn resilience. A way of showing up for others. And make it real in the days ahead. Not abstractly. Concretely. 

Perhaps there’s a phone call you’ve been putting off. Maybe there’s some forgiveness waiting to be offered. Show the kindness that feels just slightly beyond your comfort. Speak the words that need to be said. In doing so, you transform memory from something that happens to you into something that lives through you. 

This is the quiet, radical promise of Yizkor: that those we remember are not only part of our past, but an active force in our present, and, through us, a blessing for the future. 

זכרונם לברכה 
May their memories be a blessing and a becoming.

Unlimitations: A Message for the Week of Passover 

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Here’s a philosophical thought: limitations don’t exist in a vacuum. In other words, the concept of being limited necessitates the concept of being unlimited. In Wicked, when Elphaba and Glinda sing “together we’re unlimited,” they’re also acknowledging the limitations they face when they’re not united as a team. 

The same duality is true for Mitzrayim. The Hebrew name for Egypt, which we all heard and read at our seders, we often translate as “narrowness” or “the narrow space,” and it’s made up of the same Hebrew letters as the word meitzarim, the word for limitations. But the existence of Mitzrayim implies the existence of the opposite: the freedom of a space that is wide open, and the uncertainty that comes with it. 

The story we are commanded to tell each Passover l’chol dorotam, for all generations, is not just about leaving that narrow place. It’s about what comes next, because leaving Egypt is only the beginning. 

The Israelites step out of centuries of oppression and immediately find themselves not in freedom as we might imagine it, but in something far more disorienting: the wilderness. An open, vast, unstructured expanse. No walls, but also no clear path. No Pharaoh, but also no certainty. The narrowness and predictability of Egypt are replaced by the overwhelming wideness of the desert. And that, too, is frightening. 

The Torah reminds us that this journey is not a one-time event. Again and again, we are told that we must remember it, reenact it, live it, l’chol dorotam. At the seder table, we don’t simply recall history; we enter it. We eat the matzah, the bread of affliction, both because our ancestors did and because we, too, know something of constriction. We taste the bitterness of maror because bitterness is not confined to the past. And we recline, even if it feels aspirational, because freedom is something we are still learning how to inhabit. 

But here is the deeper truth: sometimes we get so used to the narrowness that the openness feels more dangerous. In Egypt, the Israelites knew who they were – slaves. In the desert, they must figure out who they might become. In Egypt, survival was the goal. In the desert, they are asked to build a society, to receive Torah, and to imagine a different way of being. 

The journey from narrowness to expansiveness is not smooth. It is filled with longing for what was, even when “what was” was painful. “Let us go back,” they say, because at least there, life was predictable. 

And if we’re being honest, we know that feeling too. There are moments in life when we find ourselves in tight places. And there are moments when the possibility of change, of growth, of stepping into something new feels even more terrifying than staying stuck. 

Passover does not promise that the desert will be easy; it promises that it is necessary. The seder becomes our annual rehearsal for that truth. We gather around the table – messy, multigenerational, filled with questions – and we practice telling the story of moving from constriction toward possibility. We remind ourselves that even when the path is unclear, we are not alone. That freedom is not a single moment, but a lifelong journey. That we carry the memory of narrowness not to stay trapped in it, but to recognize it, and to move through it. 

Throughout the week of Passover and l’chol dorotam, we ask: 

Where are the narrow places in our lives? Where are we being called into something wider, even if it feels uncertain? And then, gently, courageously, we take a step forward. 

May the rest of this Passover invite us not only to leave the narrow places we know, but to trust ourselves in the wilderness that follows. And may we, together, learn how to walk toward a freedom that is still unfolding. 

Repairing Together

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This is the d’var Torah I delivered at Congregation Neveh Shalom on March 21, 2026.

Over a period of 30 years, UCLA professor Benjamin Karney studied 1,000 newlyweds. Specifically, he studied their arguments. He put them in a room together and asked them to discuss a topic they disagreed about. Does this sound like a nightmare scenario yet? Then he would hit record on a camera and walk out of the room. After 8 minutes of fighting, Dr. Karney would take the video back to his lab for him and his colleagues to analyze. What did they look for?

Is the couple compromising? 

Are they blaming?

Are they criticizing?

Are they withdrawn?

Are they engaged?

Are they affectionate?

And after analyzing, he would invite the couple back in six months, and they’d do it all over again. Here’s what they found. Healthy fighting didn’t guarantee a fairy tale relationship that stays intact forever, but it significantly ups the chance that you’re going to be happier together.

What’s healthy fighting? And a healthy fight is where you’re not fighting about who’s right; you’re thinking of each other as a team, and you’re both curious about what you need as individuals. A good fight isn’t about who’s right; it’s about making things better for both partners.

We probably know deep down that how we respond matters just as much as what happened in the first place. And that concept is true well beyond the bounds of a relationship between two people. If only there were a guidebook that might help us apply this idea in a broader sense.

Parshat Vayikra opens the book of Leviticus with a detailed description of the sacrificial system. It’s not exactly the stuff of dinner table conversation: offerings of bulls, sheep, birds, and grain. But beneath the surface, these קורבנות (korbanot) are not about appeasing God through ritual alone. The word korban comes from the root karov, meaning “to draw close.” These offerings are about repairing distance, between ourselves and God, between ourselves and others, even within ourselves. They give structure to accountability, a path back when something has gone wrong.

The opening verse reads, “וַיִּקְרָא אֶל־מֹשֶׁה / And God called to Moses…” (Leviticus 1:1). Rashi famously notes that this calling, Vayikra, is a language of affection, of closeness, used by angels. Before any instruction, before any correction, there is a call rooted in relationship.

And perhaps that’s the point. Even when we err, even when harm has been done, the Torah insists that the response begins not with punishment, but with a call toward reconnection and responsibility. It’s not about who’s right, it’s about making things better for all. Sound familiar?

But Vayikra doesn’t ignore wrongdoing; it names it clearly. There are offerings for unintentional sins, yes, but also an insistence that when harm occurs, it must be acknowledged. Protection of life and dignity is non-negotiable. We are not asked to be passive in the face of harm. Judaism has never required that of us.

And yet, the הדרך, the path, matters. Even when provoked, even when justified in our anger, the Torah calls us to respond מתוך קדושה, מתוך אחריות, with holiness and responsibility. To protect without becoming destructive ourselves. To hold firm boundaries without losing our moral center.

I say this all the time, but like so much of our Torah, this feels particularly relevant today. We know what it means to feel vulnerable, to need protection, to insist on safety. And at the same time, we must be equally clear: acts of violence, even when born of fear or ideology, that harm innocent people, are not our way. We can name wrongdoing, including the painful reality of violence perpetrated by Jews in places like the West Bank, and say with clarity: this is not who we are meant to be.

Vayikra reminds us that accountability is sacred work. That drawing close requires honesty, restraint, and a commitment to חיים, to life.

So what does this ask of us?

To be a people who protect, fiercely and unapologetically, the safety and dignity of Jewish life. And also to be a people who remember that כוח, power, is not a license to harm, but a responsibility to act with integrity.

This week, when you feel that moment of provocation, big or small, pause. Hear the quiet vayikra, the call to respond not just from instinct, but from your deepest values.

Because the truest offering we can bring today is not from the herd or the field, but from the heart: a choice to act with courage, with restraint, and with a commitment to peace, even when it’s hardest.

That is how we draw close.

Shiny Happy Idols

Eve Posen1 Comment

This is the d’var Torah I delivered at Congregation Neveh Shalom on March 6, 2026.

 Every generation likes to think that idolatry is a practice we outgrew in biblical times. After all, most of us are not melting down jewelry and building golden statues in our living rooms. Yet idolatry doesn’t require physical graven images at all. It’s about what happens when we place something—or someone—beyond accountability. 

Just keep an eye on current events, and you’ll see what happens whenever leaders are treated as untouchable simply because enough people agree with them. When loyalty to ideology becomes so strong that we excuse wrongdoing, justify cruelty, or look away from corruption, we begin to elevate human beings to a place that belongs only to God. It’s tempting, isn’t it? When someone represents what we care about, we want them to succeed. But Torah asks us to be careful about what we are really worshipping. 

Parshat Ki Tissa contains one of the most dramatic episodes in the Torah: the sin of the Golden Calf. While Moses is on Mount Sinai receiving the commandments, the people grow anxious. They ask Aaron to make them a god to lead them. Aaron gathers their gold, fashions the calf, and the people proclaim, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” 

When Moses descends the mountain and sees the people dancing around the idol, he shatters the tablets in anger. The covenant itself is literally and figuratively broken. Yet the story does not end there. Moses confronts the people, calls them back to accountability, and ultimately returns to the mountain to renew the covenant. 

The medieval commentator Ramban (you may also know him by his Greek-influenced name Nachmanides) suggests that the people were not trying to reject God outright. They were searching for something visible to lead them in Moses’s absence. Their mistake was not simply making something shiny—it was transferring all the authority and trust they had placed in God to something they could control. 

That impulse is alive and well today. Idolatry often looks like placing our hopes entirely in charismatic leaders, cultural figures, or even political movements themselves. When we abandon trust and reason for the shiny object or shiny person, we risk excusing behavior we would condemn in anyone else. In those moments, we stop asking moral questions. And that is when leadership becomes a golden calf. 

Torah insists that no human being stands above the law—not kings, not prophets, not leaders. The challenge of Ki Tissa is not simply to avoid idols made of gold. It is to resist the quieter forms of idolatry that appear in our own lives. 

We can admire people. We can support causes passionately. But Judaism demands something more: that we remain morally awake. To hold even those we agree with to the standards of justice, humility, and accountability. Because the moment we stop asking questions, the moment loyalty replaces conscience, we risk dancing around a golden calf of our own making. And the Torah reminds us again and again that our highest loyalty must always be to tzedek/justice and to the God who demands it. 

The Thing About Remembering

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This is the d’var Torah I delivered at Congregation Neveh Shalom on February 28, 2026.

Have you ever gone shopping and forgotten where you parked? How often do you walk into a room and can’t quite remember what you came in for? Forgetfulness can be harmless. Sometimes it’s just a sign of distraction, and it’s easy to get distracted. But there’s another kind of forgetting that is far more consequential: forgetting who we are, what we stand for, and what we owe one another. Judaism understands this deeply, because memory, in our tradition, is not merely passive nostalgia; it is moral responsibility. This Shabbat brings that truth into sharp focus as Parshat Tetzaveh coincides with Shabbat Zachor, the Shabbat of remembering. 

Parshat Tetzaveh focuses heavily on ritual details like the ner tamid, the eternal flame that must burn continually, and especially the elaborate priestly garments worn by Aaron and his descendants. The Torah describes the ephod, the breastplate set with twelve stones, the robe adorned with bells and pomegranates. One verse stands out in particular: Aaron is instructed to carry the names of the children of Israel engraved on the breastplate “over his heart” whenever he enters the sanctuary. Medieval commentators note that this was not decorative symbolism, but a theological statement. Leadership means holding the people close, remembering them individually, carrying their stories and needs constantly before God. 

That message resonates powerfully with Shabbat Zachor, when we are commanded to remember what Amalek did to us: attacking the vulnerable, the stragglers, those least protected. We read this reminder on Shabbat Zachor because Jewish tradition links Amalek directly to the Purim story, where Haman, described as an Agagite, emerges as Amalek’s spiritual descendant. Amalek represents a world where people are reduced to targets, where memory and moral responsibility disappear. The priestly breastplate, by contrast, insists that every tribe, every name, matters. 

But interestingly, do you know whose name is left out of this parshah? Moses. Moses’s name is strikingly absent from this entire Torah portion of Tetzaveh. There’s a parallel with Purim here too, because which name doesn’t appear in the Megillah? God. God is never explicitly mentioned in the Book of Esther. Yet, in each case, hiddenness does not mean absence. Redemption unfolds through human courage, solidarity, and a refusal to forget one another. The holiday reminds us that even when divine presence feels obscured, our responsibility to remember and act with care remains. 

The call of this Shabbat, then, is simple, but critical. Remember who we are. Carry people in our hearts, especially those on the margins. Refuse indifference. Yes, we have the sacred garments and ritual spaces mentioned this week, but those are not the only paths to holiness. Holiness is found in the daily act of remembering fellow humans with dignity and purpose. And in that remembering, again and again, we diminish the power of Amalek and move closer to the world Purim dares us to imagine and to celebrate.